Dead Island’s “Feminist Whore”: The Tip of the Iceberg

Exactly the same thing i was pondering since DNF and Mortal Kombat. I wanted to point out this point when they redesigned femShep but i stayed silent to avoid any arguments. Maybe they should hire female game directors or designers.

@2, They’re too busy makin’ sammitches.

And let’s not forget Bioware, with their patented Ass-Cam technology pioneered in Mass Effect 2 and tested thoroughly on Miranda. I head they loaned that out to Crystal Dynamics for the new Tomb Raider game.

The FemShep thing really was pathetic. I admire BioWare greatly, but that was incredibly disappointing. And I’m disappointed in myself for not even realising what was happening until Brenna pointed it out to me. Honestly, the first time I even saw FemShep was when we did the interview on why she’d never been used in ME marketing.

It’s completely irresponsible to habitually portray women this way. I have a young daughter, and trying to shield her from the notion that all women are tottering princesses in need of a male saviour is ridiculously hard. The games industry seriously needs to grow up.

I’m not familiar with this FemShep business, but i do know that Bioware are working on THIS right now. Its pretty obvious what the ‘focal point’ on that is.

I dont like feminists.But I dont like male folks who always do the “woman-sucks-or-stupid” jokes too. I hate (and wish them a painful dead) all those males which hides behind some stupid phrases from the Qur’an to get a license to torture, beat and treat woman like slaves. But with feminists you can discuss.

And FeministWhore is not nice and fair…..its very very stupid.

But yes, you are right. I just watched the new Episode of Qore yesterday, which showed scenes of Neverdead…. yes, tits included.
NeverDead has this confident female char…but of course with a big neckline, where you see her pink underwear.

The industry want us to show, that confident woman cant be successful without sex and necklines.

Excellent piece and definitely deserving of wider attention. Just a shame that it will likely fall on deaf ears for quite some time in the gaming industry.

@KrazyKraut Look up feminism and tell me again why you don’t like women who fight for it. I suspect the “feminists” you don’t like are the sort who don’t exist; the sort that misogynists paint at the “extremists” of women’s rights.

Alyx Vance is one of the only female characters I can think of that isn’t sexualised. She’s attractive, sure, but normally so. (If you value what scraps of respect you have left for humanity, don’t Google for modded versions of her character model as they’re actually horrific.)

I actually think the trigger for this article is something of a non-issue. Obviously it isn’t an admirable phrase to include, however throwaway its existence — it’s essentially the scribble in the margin of an exercise book that was never meant to be seen — but evidently someone at Techland was aware it wasn’t appropriate and they aren’t native English speakers; it could quite easily be one person’s little joke.

That aside, I don’t really take issue with any of the points raised. As a heterosexual male I do find a lot of female character designs insulting and exasperating; at least the original Lara’s impractical bust arose from the slip of a mouse rather than a conscious design decision, even if that ultimately stuck.

At the risk of getting sidetracked, I kind of wonder what effect the availability of internet porn has had on people’s notions of what constitutes ‘sexy’. Whilst checking out Dragon Age mods there were a lot labelled as such, but the term seemed to constitute ‘ridiculously revealing’. Perhaps we’re just talking semantics, but I’ve always considered sexiness to be suggestion and the stoking of one’s imagination, whereas porn tends to be more like a surgically enhanced anatomy lesson.

@#7
When Alice Schwarzer looks at me and my girl she would start to discuss.
We have starting our own small business and we do everything together.
Now a feminist comes and say: “Woman, you have to do your own thing. You have to be independent.” Most feminits see only that my girl works with me, instead that WE are working TOGETHER. Thats always the same. I really support every woman who fights for her rights, woman are still disadvantaged…worldwide in every Country (even in countries like Germany, USA whatever..). The problem is, that most feminists dont accept others ppl opinion. Thats my problem.

this wasnt supposed to be known.. it was an inside joke by the studio… so what?

I started playing on Dead Island shortly after reading this; within 2 minutes I HILARIOUSLY happened across this:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2660324/deadislandgame.png

Oh, Deep Silver.

@10 Did you even read the piece!?

Also, unless you work there, you don’t know that. But again, that isn’t even what this is about.

@5 – Basically, FemShep was included in Mass Effect from the start, but has never been seen in any marketing. It’s always the male Shep. The female Shepard is a powerful, non-sexualised character. When they decided to put her in the marketing, they did a vote on which image to use on the box, and the original FemShep wasn’t included. So the FemShep being used in the marketing art is a “sexy,” tousled redhead, while the original FemShep is included in the game but not seen as part of any promotion.

They basically bottled it when it came to putting a powerful female character front and centre in a male-targeted action game. I’m going to make the assumption that they didn’t want to take the risk that she wouldn’t appeal to the average man buying the special edition.

What’s so disappointing about it to me is that BioWare’s probably done more than any other studio in terms of including same-sex relationships, etc, in its games, but when it came down to it, it bowed under pressure and went “make-up girl”. It was weak.

hah! this is a joke right? so women r sexualized. so what? most women out there have been doing this to themselves for years. we (the men) r only reacting to what u (the women) have been showing us for years. we have never made u dress light so don’t throw crap like that on us! you’ve been doing this to yourselves. so what if women in games r hot? what r the developers suppose to do? make them look normal? why? no! sometimes I prefer my women normal and sometimes I prefer them hot just like in real life. and as someone pointed out there r normal women in games. like Alyx for example. also just so u know yes boobs don’t work like that but I have seen so much porn and a few real life women that I can tell u that some women look ok and some look really hot. so no! developers r not doing anything wrong. they r simply copying real life! so to Techland and Deep Silver I say good work guys!

oh and the men r better than women jokes? well guess what? they r not jokes!! if women would be so awesome there would be some women r better then men jokes as well.

also to the guys who r agreeing with this: stop ignoring the reality and grow some f**king ballz! u’r pathetic!

and and now the backlash! give it to me! )

@5 …..hmmm……..the gun?

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much chance of the games industry growing up until the consumers do. And there doesn’t seem to be any sign of that either.

I like your writing and all Brenna but you put a VERY bad example in. You didn’t write about it but, you put a video from Catherine in the article and this game is ABSOLUTELY NOT about over-sexualized female characters. Only one character is that way and the explanation is solid. Two other important characters (Katherine and the barmaid) are female (well, kinda) and they are definitely NOT weak over-sexualized females.
That said, I think a lot of people are over-reacting on this subject. Characters in video games are made up and yes, they are stereotypes. But it goes for male and female, for black people and white people, for poor people and rich ones. Video games tell a story. So of course everyone is idealized/exaggerated. Question is: are you stupid enough to think that people are really like characters in video games? That’s just like saying people are dumb enough to think all arabian people are terrorists because the enemies are arabian in the latest FPS. Now I’m not saying no one thinks that but that’s really a small number of people.

To talk about this male/female treatment difference again, yes this is a reality. But do you think we males should feel offended because males are generally portrayed as barely thinking brutes in video games?

@ Blerk – My thoughts exactly, there’s a huge swathe of comments on EG about this and very few of them give me hope.

Totally agree with you Brenna. My partner is a gamer too, and it’s almost embarrassing at times playing some of the games with her that have female characters. And like Pat, I have a young daughter, and trying to find her positive role models in gaming is nigh on impossible.

The problem is at gamer’s feet imo. You just have to look at how the gaming community ( on the internet at least ) acts as a whole, when some new tech comes along to broaden the market. They instinctively lash out, like a problematic toddler. Anything that welcomes people ( be it new tech or a new game ) other than 13 to 30 year old males to gaming is derided.

They crap all over comments threads and forums almost instinctively, making it nigh on impossible that anyone beyond that demographic will ever join the conversation.

People often say we’re just at the early hollywood stages of gaming making, e.g. the Charlie Chaplin era – I’d argue we’re at the exploitation era now with no signs of ever leaving it.

If someone has to be intelligent and educated in order to understand why something is offensive…then chances are it isn’t actually offensive.

There are far too many poly-parrot ideas here, perpetuated by educated sheep.

I’m confused why this article was written in the first place.

Is the games industry sexist? Yes, as is any industry.
Is it only sexist to women? No, why haven’t you gone into detail about the unrealistic portrayal of men in the games industry too?

I am a woman too, and yes the sexism in the games industry annoys me, but it’s not aimed only at women. The only male character I can think of off the top of my head, that’s not over sexed or OTT in build is Nathan Drake.

I’m very surprised to hear the backlash against the redesigns of Fem Shep, I mean lets face it, none are overly sexed, none are made up to be like bimbos. So what’s the problem. Can tell you she’s had FAR more resources put into her several designs than the male Sheperd taken from a male model. That’s about as lazy as you can get. Why was male Shep posted on all the marketing campaigns? To help sell the game to the white male 18-35 age group. Prior to ME3, you know that all character design for Shepard was purely on armour and not face, after all this being an RPG, and a Bioware one at that, they intend the player to make their own character.

As for the “arse cams”, that’s got bog all to do with women’s arse’s, and it’s about showing an alternate camera angle to show the character talking the other party of the conversation listening. Generally the camera angle is shot from a perspective at hip height to indicate that the one talkin to the focus point as the angle would be shown to “empower” that character thus re-iterating that they are the one in the limelight. If you think this angle is only to show women’s arse’s, then you’ve obviously never spoken to the likes of Garrus or Jacob. This is present in any of Bioware’s games, and you can tell it’s just a stock camera angle, as it’s already been in several videos released and leaked for TOR. Although in 90% of those we get to see some bloke in tight trousers.

Generally in games men are just as over-sexed as women, with rippling muscles and abs and over 7 foot tall with rugged good looks. This is just the male version of how women are portrayed. This sort of stereotype is just as un-realistic as overly large breasts and arse. Alhto saying that I’ve known several women with large breasts who have not had any kind of surgery I might add.

Speaking as an artist, the reason why males are generally overly muscular and women overly “curvey” is just purely because 99% are designed. When creating a male or female character you generally take the aspects of that person or in this case the features that stand out. So for a man you would generally make them tall with a big chest and strong arms. With wide it would be generally be slender with wide hips and larger breasts. this has nothing to do with sexism, it’s about making them instantly recognizable from a distance as being male or female. It’s about exaggerating features that stand out. Even if the game goes for a realistic art style. There are a few cases where this is not true, like Heavy Rain for example, but that’ because that is literally a fully acted game with real life actors converted into a polygonal form.

Finally to the point in question, the “Feminist Whore” Skill name. Personally I’m not offended by this. I think it’s suits the skill, which gives the character a damage bonus towards men, which would indicate that said character doesn’t like men and is probably sexist towards them. All it implies that she she has such a hatred towards men that she is a slave to her own views in life. Does that offend me? Again no, if anything the fuss over it to start with is more offensive as this is just another political correctness gone wrong. Personally I find it more discriminative to have, say, and RPG that that has a create a character option but no female option at all.

I just believe in equality, if something goes for one thing it should apply equally to another. As my initial point in my post, this article about sexism, is in it’s own way sexist by ignoring the sexism towards men too.

This is entirely one sided. Games as a medium don’t have much depth in storytelling, so characters in general are verry simpel and idealised.
This is not just female characters, this happens to male characters just as much.

Female characters are often sexy and dumb, male characters are often buff and dumb. To just dump this on sexism is massivly short sighted.
Or look at Dante, extremly sexualised male character, always walking with his shirt half off strutting his stuff, so what?

And there’s even more interesting female characters then just the few you named. Pretty much the entire advetnure genre is filled with interesting female protagonist. Here’s some more, Eternal Darkness, Heavy Rain, Beyond Good and Evil also spring to mind, Miranda, from Mass Effect. Yes, she is also verry sexy but that is also part of her storyline and point of conflict she contstantly suffers from.
Why do these games and this genre feature more interesting characters? Because they are story driven.

That is the most important thing. The moment you putt story first character depth begins to matter. Most games focus on gameplay and as such feature simpel stereotypes for both MALE AND FEMALE characters.

Wich brings me to a more interesting point: just because someone is atractive doesn’t make them dumb or simplistic as a character!
Media in general will always feature atractive people, games are no different, no matter wether they portray male or female characters.
Penny Arcde putt that across in a funny way: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/08/03

@20, Zurtech, While I appreciate Brenna’s article your post was a much more enjoyable and balanced read. Great post and thanks.

@19 Offensiveness isn’t an objective quality. It doesn’t even necessarily rely on intent; people accidently offend others all the time.

@20 Whilst I agree with your post for the most part, I feel you’re downplaying the divide between the way male and female characters are treated differently. For instance it’s not uncommon for players to be encouraged to perv on females in games, and the less said about unlockable/downloadable costumes the better.

In terms of actual character I think both sexes are presented equally — there’s both great and terrible examples of each — but presentation wise I think there’s a definite disparity. Not always, but often.

@23 Exactly my point Aimless.

The problem usually isn’t with the one ‘causing offense’ but with the one ‘taking offense’. The exception to that rule is extreme cases.

Oh, and on male super heroes not being sexualised. Seen the recent Marvel movies? Thor and Captain America, plenty of eye candy shots for the ladies of the main heroes not wearing much at all.
Thor espcially, with one scene in wich Chris Hemsworth is pretty much just standing around almost naked for no particular reason.
“Oops, I just got out of the shower…”

And that’s fine, nothing wrong with giving the female audiance something nice to look at aswell.

@24 I don’t really agree. Naturally things differ depending on context, but generally I see it as a shared responsibility.

Think of it a bit like designing a ladder. If someone falls off it clearly you weren’t directly to blame for that, but you still have a responsibility to put out something reasonably safe. Neither party can afford to be oblivious.

Any form of communication is a process of give and take, you can’t shift all the responsibility to the one interpreting what you have to say.

I’m not sure why a lot of people are focusing this on the games industry either, when so many industries focus on beauty and attractiveness, and that goes for both male and females.

Movies, music, magazines, games, advertising… Attractiveness sells and people, men and women, often relate a lot more to it.

One small minor example I can think of in gaming which proved otherwise was in Fable where female melee focused characters often looked bulky and “male-like” and while this might be considered a more “realistic” portrayal of a female warrior, a lot of female players complained that their character was ugly and man-like…

@27 Wich might also point to something interesting: that outside of gaming journalism, female gamers don’t find the way women are portrayed in games as particularly offensive.
Looking at the cosplay scene with an overwelming amount of female gamers/geeks choosing to play as a sexy character would also make it seem that they don’t really see it as a problem.

@27 Because this is a videogame site?

Other media certainly have their own problems, but that doesn’t negate those of the industry this article is about. That would be akin to excusing your looting because other people were doing it, to give a recent real-world example.

@28, I wonder if a lot of female gamers just accept the overly slim and curvy female figures the same way most guys accept their characters to be the tall, slim, ripped, attractive type. It doesn’t bother me that buffed fella on screen is only half as good looking as pretty much most of the VG247 male community, me included. (Check the forum post to see that I’m totally lying here )

Whenever I create a character in a game, I always make male characters that tend to be what I consider attractive because quite frankly, I don’t want my in-game personalisation of “me” to be some ugly ass dude… Unless I’m doing it for some specific RP element.

@29, Is there a problem to be excused is what I’m getting at… It would seem not everyone links the portrayal of woman as negative.

Also, how can we have an article wich asks about interesting non overly sexualised females and forget Elena from Uncharted and Alex from Half Life 2?

“What’s wrong with being sexy ?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xF5TeHf5QQ

Firstly I do agree but you need to remember where this all came from and that’s partly women themselves. Women started something that they can’t finish while men have carried it on for years and years while some women get offended and others continue to make things worse. Just look at music videos these days for a clear example of this. Nearly all women artists nowadays show themselves in a sexual way which only further advances the male mind and makes males believe that it must be alright to continue. If every single women stopped showing themselves in a sexual way in the news/games/music/movie industries etc then we might just see some change. BUT that isn’t going to happen. In this day and age there is absolutely no chance of this happening, why? Because women won’t be willing to take the digs to further advance our species. (Now that sounds slightly feminist I know but men ain’t going to do anything because they’re already allowed ((somewhat)) to do all this feminist stuff) It’s women who need to take the first step but as I said, I doubt they will. Women, why do you wear makeup? Because you want to look good, now that’s the first main problem. In media makeup is shown to be the norm, however just think about a thousand years ago… do you think people living in caves had makeup? NO, they dealt with who they are. Why do men not wear makeup? Because it’s not seen as the norm. So the first step is to throw the whole makeup is the norm out the window and to face the facts women and men that women don’t always have those perfect curves and might have a slight pale face. Secondly, clothing. Now women if you don’t want to be seen in a feminist sexual way… then don’t buy this crap that makes you look that way, if you don’t buy it, they won’t make it.

Thirdly you need to choose, women = sexy or women = power. Because lets face it, men don’t = sexy, men = power. Which unfortunately women is in your genes to run to a man with power as your mind knows that someone with power is more likely to have money to then provide for you and other spawn (babies)

Finally just to sum up because this is getting to be a much longer comment than I previously imagined. Women… if you want change you can’t just say it, you can’t just blame men (not that I’m saying it’s only men) because those aren’t going to help. You need to actually DO SOMETHING. Black Americans did something and got their rights. So maybe it’s time to do something instead of just talking about it because as I said above, as long as you continue to go down the path you go, men will continue to believe that women can be portrayed the way they are right now.

@32
There are several. I’m playing R3 right now i cant say any of the females in that are ‘sexed up’. The game i played before that was Deus Ex, i dont think any of them were specifically sexualized in that either. Nothing purposely sexy about Forty-Seven in SOCOM 4, i guess Nix from inFamous 2 could fall into that category but not Kuo and especially not Trish. Lucy Stillman from Assassins Creed? Not really.

There are plenty of examples, it really depends on what you call ‘sexualized’, if a character being slim and wearing make-up has you rolling your eyes then i’m sorry but you’re being a bit silly. Especially when all of the male characters have the chiseled bodies of Greek Gods in those same games.

I would edit my 34 comment but I ran out of time.
@20 I completely agree, you said it perfectly and from a women’s view that means women will actually listen to your view so I give you thanks.

@26 – But we are talking about the oxymoron that is political correctness here. Many people find ‘political correctness’ offensive in itself.

I personally think the main problem here is game devs who still think their main demographic are adolescent males & over-compensate in trying to appeal to this perceived majority.

Personally, I miss the days when people actually cared about, erm playing the games and journos didn’t write inane essays exploiting every misstep or leak devs make. Ironically we’ve had much less chance of a game selling purely on sex appeal then, and lunatics mixing entertainment and reality weren’t so prominent.

I agree with the thrust of the article. Sexism is indefensible, but denigrating stereotypes are not limited to depictions of women. I find it ironic that the section dismissing claims that men are stereotyped is titled “Sweeping it under the rug.” It is true that men are not sexualized in games like women are, but that does not mean that they are not stereotyped. I might respond to this section of the article by noting that women may be oversexualized, but they aren’t constantly shown as being cold-hearted and unable to speak good English like Russians are often depicted. Many also are not given the same stereotypical traits of people of African descent (Cole from Gears of War stands out as a particularly flagrant offender). Nor are women constantly depicted as ‘roid raging’ body builders with impossible musculature, like men are generally depicted in modern action games.

Are these good arguments for why women are not stereotyped? No. All these observations show is that lots of people are depicted in line with inaccurate or unrealistic stereotypes, and there are plenty of stereotypes to go around–not all of which neatly reduce to ‘being depicted as sex objects.’ Stereotypes against men and minorities do not ‘steal the spotlight’ from those against women, nor do they lessen their repugnance–they are different stereotypes, yes, but they still deserve no less attention because they are no less wrong.

No group of people deserves to have stereotypes against them ‘swept under the rug.’ All racist, sexist, and otherwise outmoded stereotypes ought to be rejected with the same vigor as Hillier demands for her group of choice.

Thanks for the article. While I still don’t think Feminist Whore is that big of a deal, the general points that this article touches are really serious and in many cases worrying BUT I don’t think every form of sexualised female character is being sexist or wrong.

Bayonetta is one of the most sexualized characters ever created in any form of art and yet by the end of the game, I found myself respecting the character as a woman and a deep / real character (I know, it screams unreal but somehow, she is up there with Alyx and Jade for me. Blasphemy!?). Devs showed a lot of respect for their female character, even in the midst sexualising madness in her design, animations, dialogue and other things.

#18 @BraveArse >You just have to look at how the gaming community ( on the internet at least ) acts as a whole, when some new tech comes along to broaden the market. They instinctively lash out, like a problematic toddler. Anything that welcomes people ( be it new tech or a new game ) other than 13 to 30 year old males to gaming is derided.

They crap all over comments threads and forums almost instinctively, making it nigh on impossible that anyone beyond that demographic will ever join the conversation.

Woah, woah- you mean people for whom a thing isn’t designed for don’t enjoy such a thing? Wow. Didn’t see that coming.

Okay, flippancy aside, why is there this big upset every time the core isn’t particularly fond of a casual title? Surely if the point of much of the ‘expended market’ titles is that they appeal to people games haven’t appealed to in the past, then you’re going to fail to appeal to the people games have appealed to in the past? Why is the act of merely saying that they don’t enjoy a game that simply isn’t for them always portrayed as being threatened or people actively wanting to keep gaming to themselves?

Even when at its worst, it’s hardly been something that other artforms are free from- why is not liking Farmville so terrible and pulling all of gaming down, but that time there was that campaign to buy that RATM song to stop the X-Factor winner from getting to number one gets to be widely considered A Good Thing, and reported quite positively in mainstream news? How is it any different to the British public’s collective sneer that met the announcement of Big Brother being resurrected on a different channel (Or, for that matter, the similar response to any series of the show on its original channel?)

In regards to ‘joining the conversation’, Why isn’t the non-core market’s distaste for core games equally elitist? Why does everyone have to like everything everywhere? Why can’t different things be for different people in different places?

Sorry for going slightly off-topic, but number 41…. Bayonetta wasn’t even sexualized to begin with, I still can’t believe some find her sexually appealing, that’s not to say she looks bad just that the message went right over some people’s heads.. The idea was that she’s a ‘celestial being’ or whatever you call that, just playing around. The whole game was laughing at stereotypes and japs’ own games, e.g. jrpgs.

Bitches is ho’s.

Alex from half life 2 and Faith from Mirrors Edge. Still, point taken.

Come on people! Why are we so over sensitive. Women wanted to be able to go to work to be equal and they fought for that, and i respect them. But now they are angry they have to work and miss there children growing up. They are back to wanting to stay home, why because of sexism, some inequality? No because they are what they are created for. Just as men were. In all of living creatures each sex has a role, not because they were forced but because it is whats natural or them. Reason why most gamers and game designers are men they like to kill things, blow thing up they are more violent. You can make the over the rainbow looking for the sun game, but ill tell you that game wont sell. Why do you think barbies world for Xbox was so valuable, because it was rare. No one bought it. Go back to cave man days before the media and the people magazines they were out killing animals while the women took care of the children and picked berries. If women want to be hunters so be it, but most of them wont feel comfortable in that atmosphere. The games are designed this way because they sell this way because it gives a sense of make believe to the human psychology. Maybe one day some women will create some games geared towards women. All the power to them, but I know growing up for most boys they wanted to be the knight saving the princess and not the other way around. So let it go.

Men’s physiques are also, and have always been, unrealistically represented in video games. #justsaying

Although I completely agree with the argument of how back the female gender is represented in video games, there’s one line that really stuck out for me…

“[Women] are sexualised, while male characters are not.”

Are you kidding me?!

First you need to equate what masculine sexuality is exactly. Roles of power, a lack of restraint, sometimes dominance. And physical strength is also a big part of that. It all boils down to male “power” most of the time.

Now lets takes a look at the male cast of most games. They’re big, hulking brutes with giant arms and abs, six packs bigger than concrete blocks and chins that could break through concrete.

But nobody ever complains about that, and how horribly misrepresentative it is of the male gender. Why? How is that any different to the way woman are unrealistically portrayed, Brenna? I’m honestly interested in hearing your answer.

I think the problem exists on both sides, and unless the game in intentionally over-the-top or aesthetically tongue-in-cheek, it rarely fits in place.

Their adventures are off the wall and crazy, but Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher are two of the most natural looking characters I’ve ever seen in a video game, and it adds a lot of strength of an already great franchise.

It wouldn’t be quite the same if Nathan had a neck the size of a tree trunk or Elena’s chest was busting out of her work-shirt.

#49, I think I’ve seen quite a natural looking male character in a certain game, it was called Max Payne.

Why are all male characters so good looking? What do developers have against ugly men?

I have less connection to Adam Jenson because hes really, really, really, ridiculously good looking. I require, nah DEMAND more ugly male main characters in games.

Also you can find sexism, bigotry and racism in any single thing if you look hard enough.

Actually seeing Bioware being mentioned and noting that most of the blame seems to be being dumped at the feet of male developers for rampant Earth shaking levels of horrible horrible sexism I would like to bring up the senior writer of Dragon Age 2. One that said this :

>Q: What is your least favorite thing about working in the industry?

>A: Playing the games. This is probably a terrible thing to admit, but it has definitely been the single most difficult thing for me. I came into the job out of a love of writing, not a love of playing games… I’m really terrible at so many things which most games use incessantly — I have awful hand-eye coordination, I don’t like tactics, I don’t like fighting, I don’t like keeping track of inventory, and I can’t read a game map to save my life.

Miss Helper also claimed inspiration from Twilight and said “Giggle squeee” in a promotional video about DA2. So then we have a lead writer on a video game, which is a role with a fair amount of clought. So DA2 must be a pretty Sex equal game right?